Coaching Cooking

I LOVE this seasoning: Spice House’s Greektown “Billygoat” Greek seasoning. Clare gave it to me two years ago for Christmas and I use it all the time for making killer tuna fish sandwiches and adding zing to soups and roasts. It is such a great blend. Check it out here at Chicago’s famous Spice House. You may wind up buying other great spice blends too.

For those of you thinking ahead to Valentine’s Day, here’s a great idea for customizing your very own M&Ms. I am lured to this gift idea by the promise of color and the possibilities for endless sappy or sarcastic wording. The M&M site lets you pick the color of the M&Ms plus you can write your own message (okay, yes, there are guidelines). Still, who doesn’t want to receive M&Ms in the mail that read:

Love your
cooking

OR

No!
Bad pizza

Okay, I would never send those, but it’s fun to think of creative ways to bypass M&Ms message-writing guidelines. They won’t accept any obscenities or company names. Still, sending messages through candy seems pretty delicious and literary to me (okay, literary is stretching it…I guess it’s just fun). So yeah, go out and have some fun–the chocolate way.

I read about this phenomenon online and I just had to check it out. I may have to try to make this interesting food concept on my own. For now, look at this great chocolate pizza from the Chocolate Pizza Company. Just when I thought pizza couldn’t become even more nutritionally-suspect yet amazingly delicious. I’m waiting on an ice cream pizza so let me know if it’s already been created.

The razzcello (raspberry-infused vodka) that I made recently is in the fridge and ready to be gifted to a lucky few. AB and I just tasted it (and then we had to dash out the door so we didn’t have a chance to drink the whole bottle). It was that good! Man, I was five seconds away from becoming Lindsey Lohan’s evil-Asian-twin sister and downing it much to dismay of my Asian-blushed face. I digress…

This year, due to a significant reduction in my budget, I decided to make more of my gifts. And I’m a fan of gifting booze and food. Soooo…I’ve made three fruito-infused vodkas plus I decided to make some cute gift tags to go with the bottles.

Recipe for Gift Tags:

1 or 2 rolls of decorative (and swanky-looking) wrapping paper
Scissors
2-sided tape or fast-drying glue
Edging scissors in a design of your choice (I recommend Faber)

Step 1: Decide what shapes you’d like to cut out for the gift tags. I used Microsoft Word for Mac to make star-shapes and diamond-shapes. Here’s what they look like:

Step 2: Design a greeting for the back of the gift tag. Here’s a sample:

Jenny’s Homemade Razzcello*
(aka Raspberry-infused Vodka)

This Razzcello is drinkable on:

[okay, on a word doc this shows up as a straight line for the drinkable date]
This drink is best served icy cold with soda water or tonic (**and a little lime…). Store in the freezer or fridge!
Happy Holidays!
xxoo,
[sign name here]

*Clearly this is a made-up work, but who the hell cares?!

[end of gift tag]

Step 3: Glue or tape (I use the double-sided tape because it’s much easier) the gift tag backs to the back of the wrapping paper or decorative paper. Cut out shapes using regular scissors or fancy edging ones. Punch a hole at the top and thread a ribbon through it.

Voila! Fancy gift tags that make homemade booze or food look spectacular.

P.S. Or you can just send this FREAKIN’ hilarious Justin Timberlake SNL sketch (hint: it’s about giving someone “something” in a box). It’s calorie-free and you’re probably going to hell (sorry, that’s my formerly Catholic side a-talkin’) , but it’s so funny that it just doesn’t matter.

I’ve been MIA lately due to an early Christmas coma of sorts with the shopping and the wrapping of gifts and the consumption of mass quantities of carbs. So I’m back!

I just recently purchased mulling spices at Williams-Sonoma. They’re on sale if you’re interested. I also think mulling spices are easy to make at home.

Mulling Spice Recipe:
Makes one cup of mulling spices and it should keep in a tightly-fitting container kept in a cool, dark place for about a year.

Ingredients:
1/4 cup of whole cloves
1/4 cup of dried orange peel (or half and half of orange and lemon if you like)
1/4 cup of cinnamon sticks (crushed or broken into pieces)
1/4 cup of whole allspice

Mix the ingredients together and store in an airtight container. This makes a great gift for anyone who likes mulled cider or wine. The ingredients can also be adjusted to suit your taste so you can add dried apples or other fruits. I also like cinnamon syrup which can be added when you mull the cider or wine (**I don’t recommend adding the cinnamon syrup to the actual mulling spices because it will cause the mixture to become sticky and hard to work with…).

Enjoy and Happy Holidays!